I have been doing Yoga on and off at the Boll YMCA for the past three years now. I remember when I took my first yoga class, it was during a yoga course I took through Wayne State. The class was held at a run of the mill college gym. I thought it a very un-inspirational place to partake in such a spiritual practice; however, I was hooked after the very first class. I remember looking in the mirror and not seeing myself, but seeing Indian classical dancers I had grown up watching. I also remember how determined I was to hold and strike poses despite excruciating pain. Today, I also practice in a gym, but a lovely one at the YMCA with a city view; however, I also now know that fancy surroundings are not what make a yoga practice. Tuesday nights are very calming, spiritual, and you are eased into some intense poses you never thought you could make. Tuesdays and Thursdays at lunch are torturously athletic, mat drenching, and I lose all sight of the spirituality until I reach the end and am shocked that I survived. I love my Detroit Yoga and I love everyone who makes it out each week to share both the spiritual and the athletic.

I never thought that I would be celebrating 2010 in Detroit. I actually rang in the new year in Florence, Italy this year on my honeymoon. I was very happy after a backpacking whirlwind honeymoon to come back home to the D. Eating delicious cheese and bread and sipping on lovely European cappuccino for two weeks really makes you appreciate places like J. Hirt in Eastern Market or Avalon in Midtown.

I spent the day on a wonderful urban exploration jaunt with a fine upstanding graffiti artist. We met and explored the acres, 35 to be exact, of abandoned factory known as the Packard Plant.

The plant has seen better days. The inevitable and unstoppable scrappers are devouring the structure. Driving rusty pick-up trucks with unstable trailers and armed with torches the secretive workers are removing the support beams. I am no structural engineer but I suspect this may accelerate the natural spiral of decay.

This is readily visible in the numerous imploding warehouses and sagging bridges. Few, like two, businesses soldier on in the decaying buildings. Unfortunately, this awesome relic of manufacturing might has caught the eye of movie editing hack Michael Bay. He’s hoping to distract movie watchers from his lack of a plot or even simple continuity by blowing the Packard Plant up.

If you missed the Hard Lessons’ Release show&partay at the Belmont last night, you can still catch them at Smalls tonight in Hamtramck and Saturday at 4pm @ the Lager House in Detroit.  Not only do i expect to hear the fabulousity that is their new release, the Hard Lessons will also be playing with great bands on both nights.

Last night i saw “It Came from Detroit” at Brew & View in Ferndale.  For the ignorant Detroit music fan (in this case, me…) this Rock Doc reignited a lot of pride that i had let stew underneath for the Detroit music scene.  Honestly, i had little clue about the bands who were interviewed, besides seeing their names in Ads for weekend shows at the Magic Stick, or in Hamtramck.  i really had only listened to the White Stripes and the Von Bondies.  After realizing what creativity and passion the bands unbeknownst to me have put into their music, my respect if miniscule before, is now immense.

This “garage band scene” roughly from the period of the mid 1980s to the early 2000s, bred some fiesty creativity and characters.  The Documentary tells it like it is, letting the gritty Underbelly of the Detroit Rock scene bask in the sunlight, getting a more attractive bronze.  By the end you are glorifying the grit in your mind, wanting more passion and inspiration to be seen at any venue, so you can at least TRY to capture a snipet of energy the movie reveals to you. This energy was not born out of greed.  It is clear in the docuementary that the incentive “to rock” is to find the nirvana one attains in the creative process, with other like minded, supportive folks.

It is nice to see the positive people and ideas that have come, and continue, to come from Detroit, since we are in a time when the great majority of media focuses constantly on the negative.

you can still see this badass doc at Brew & View TONIGHT, THURSDAY doors open at 8 and the film starts at 9.30.

CHECK IT.

 

 It was the first time standing in the middle of an art exhibit that all the eyes were on me.  And I was forced to look back into them.   Four walls of unfamiliar faces staring at you.    At Patrick Pantano’s latest art exhibition, you are forced to look into the eyes of all sorts of unfamiliar characters.  In his artistic statement he notes:

 

“To relax the subjects and try to bring them to a place where their expression did little to inform the tone of the image; to shoot them all with the same minimal lighting and the same film, camera, and processing to hopefully create some sense of similarity. That said they are all so different!” 

 

           It’s true. No matter how we try to compartimentalize people and things, what is it that makes every stare so unique?  At first, the room is quite abrasive.  How often are we so at ease to stare, this closely,  into someone’s eyes?  For most this experience is to be avoided.  Presentations, family parties, bitter exes and prick bosses.   But here, your purpose is to stare. By the end, you are among friends.  After all that ogling, the stares seem so familiar, they haunt you and you swear, I’ve seen that person somewhere before.  A party or something.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pantano’s Exhibition, “Heads Shot”, is running from May 8-July 3, 2009 @ the CAID.

 

 

 

 

 

you have no reason to complain this weekend of boredom. if you watch the next item on your netflix queue this weekend you’re eating a big bag of chips called “FAIL”.

you have sooo much going for you, can’t you see?! or are you blinded by the possibilities and options??????

it is the first of may and there is already sooooo much to do tonight and tomorrow night and even Sunday!!!

tonight you should go here.  drink here or here .

the next night you should GAWK AT these kids and these kids.  the former will make you feel like a child prodigy. the latter will make you feel unaccomplished and old – but not bored or pathetic – like if you had sat on the couch instead.

and if that doesn’t tickle your fancy go to the Belmont and see the amazing line up they have there Sat. nite.

you can recover from your vicious hangover at Goldfish Tea from 7-9pm no cover and listen to Jesse Calcat play traditional Chinese instruments and chill and drink something a little less rough on the body. LAPSANG on the rocks, bitches…

I realize I’ve been slacking with posting on here and I’m going to make a conscious effort to post more. The economic slowdown is affecting us all. Like many of my fellow Michiganders I’m finding myself unemployed – spending lots of time sending out resumes I never get callbacks on and the rest of my time is spent at the gym, the library, and on social networks.

Social networks like Twitter.

While cruising around the site I’ve found there are quite a few Detroit related tweeters(?) as well. Among them are the Detroit News, Free Press, even DTW. A simple search for “Detroit” turns up tons of accounts, so I’ll spare you all the details and allow you to decide which is most interesting. But you can get everything from cutting edge news to mundane updates from your neighbors. As I mentioned, you can even find me on there. Of course, I might not be all that interesting to most of you cats, but you’re welcome to follow me just the same.

Go ahead, Detroit. Explore your digital surroundings… and leave a comment with your Twitter account if you’re already connected. Let your fellow Detroiters connect with you!

With the Big Three on their death bed and the economy being in the crapper, there is still a place where all your Christmahannaukwanzikah dreams can come true!

Mosey yourself down to the FILLMORE theater (which some of us still want to call State) on Woodward, tomorrow from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm.  I’ve gone to this banquet of crafts for 3 years in a row and always find something great for friends.  And if I don’t find what I want, I leave with a bagful of inspiration – like last year when I melted a record album into a sweet fruit bowl. Because frankly, these products are brainchild’s of a Martha Stewart with a full sleeve, after 3 screwdrivers. They are ultra unique and one of kind – and not busting the bank!  YAY for people who are crafty that I can buy from and make my own taste look far better than it actually is!

Yesterday I was driving down Woodward and saw the snowflake adornments for the lampposts for the first time this season.  I was hoping I was not to late in regards to seeing the tree lighting; I was happy to see that the tree was just being assembled.  However, as I was driving down Woodward this evening, my heart sank to see that the tree was lit.  Every year I want to make the tree lighting and it looked like it was too late.  I must have just seen a trial because the official lighting takes place on the 21^st of this month.

I have been reading the Metblog for almost a year now. I have long had the itch to express myself, so when I saw the post asking for new writers I felt it was the perfect time to give a little of my observations, thoughts, opinions and a little of myself.
I have been in and around Detroit mostly all my life. I was born in October of 1970, and brought home to a little house in Highland Park. I lived there with my Mother and Father until the age of 14 when they divorced. after that I bounced arond quite a bit, from Highland Park to just south of the Wayne State area. I even had a short stint in Novi. I ended up going to high school in Detroit at the now closed Murray Wright.

I have had many jobs in my life, most in the bar and restaurant industry. I even owned a small bar on the east side of Detroit. Now I work in construction, and bartend on the side. Without turning this into a drawn out, overly fact filled bio, I hope I have let you know about me.

Looking forward to writing for you

“So what does this have to do with us?” I hear you asking. The answer is simple… it was all shot in and around metro Detroit. This new flick, Gran Torino, is rumored to be Eastwood’s last on-screen appearance too so if you’re a fan you might not want to miss this one.

For more details on the film, I suggest visiting the listing at IMdB. Or you could just go watch the trailer.

I’ve been watching a war this summer. No, not that never ending Orwellian one; nor the nauseating rises and fall of the economy either. It’s a struggle of man dominating nature, nature struggling back, and some street artists stopping in to admire the view. It took place in what the artists refer to it as “the market”, others know it as the Dequindre Cut.

A rail line skirts the east edge of downtown Detroit. This rail line, long abandoned by humans to the vagaries of urban tolerant wildlife, cuts a deep swath. Nestled in its embrace is an urban canvas. Hobos, debris and the occasional dog walker all gathered on this pathway that ran from the Eastern Market to the Detroit river. That was until the MDOT, encouraged by the noble rails-to-trails, came up with something a wee bit more family friendly.

With a surprising quickness the construction crews toppled the foliage and replaced it with sterile woodchips and manicured rows of flowers. The artists stubbornly persevered. Each night every newly erected surface received a complementary coating of paint. Every day towering construction vehicles craft new surfaces and the spiraling dance goes on today. For a glimpse into the past of the cut, stand at the mouth of the Gratiot bridge and stare north.

 The E2 conference was held early last week on Wayne State University’s campus.  The conference boasted record numbers and was a very well run conference.  The focus of the fourth annual conference was business in the Detroit region.  Conference goers were inspired by stories of successful business and entrepreneurs in the region.  My two favourite speakers were Mary Ellen Sheets, of Two Men and a Truck, and David Brandon, CEO of Dominos Pizza. 

Mary Ellen was so touching in her presentation of her struggles to make ends meet after her husband left her with a houseful of teenagers.  She confided that her husband left to get some bread and never came home; “a 23 year old loaf of bread.”  Her story was a winding road to success.  Her family was instrumental in getting the business by during tough times and being guinea pigs in franchising.  She divided her first thousand between her 10 favourite charities.  Today Mary Ellen is a multi-million dollar success with an international franchise empire under her belt. 

David Brandon of Domino’s was beyond charming.  He told a tale of working in a Domino’s store on New Year’s Eve before Y2K (does anyone even remember that?) because he did not want to tell his employees to work this monumental day and not do so himself.  Everything from the cardboard-like uniform pants to the difficult prosciutto pizza topping was a challenge and an eye-opening experience.  Today, he lives by the Dave rule.  If he cannot make a product or get through a process, it is not going out the door. 

We in Michigan are losing jobs left, right, and center; however, we still have the power to create.  What better time than now?